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Tuesday, February 18, 2014

D&D 40th Anniversary, Day 18

First gaming convention you ever attended.

I've never been to one, and it's pretty likely I never will. It's not that I don't find the idea of a bunch of RPG geeks getting together to share their love of the hobby intriguing. Part of me - a pretty big part, actually - would love to meet other D&D enthusiasts, especially of the OSR variety, share thoughts and stories and play a few one-shot adventures. Then there's the other part - the part where the social anxiety disorder lives.

I find people kind of intimidating. I've never learned how to approach them or how to start a conversation. Even if someone else initiates contact, I worry that I'm annoying them and don't say a whole lot. I probably come across either snobbishly aloof or weirdly nervous. If I were a character in a D&D game, I'd have a Charisma score of about 5. That might be overly generous, actually.

Given enough time, I can become semi-comfortable with other people, but that time frame is a lot longer than I would imagine even the longest game convention would last. It'd probably be a waste of my time. I'd show up, wander around gazing furtively but hopefully at all the people having a good time, finally feel that I had reached the uttermost pinnacle of irrelevancy as an individual, and go home feeling empty and disappointed. So yeah, probably not.